


be there

by difranxo



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 03:24:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14685420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/difranxo/pseuds/difranxo
Summary: Alice visits FP at the hospital to comfort him.[missing scene from 2x22]





	be there

**Author's Note:**

> Due to the lack of Falice in the finale, here’s a little scene that I wish we saw in the episode. 
> 
> Inspired by Jess Glynne’s “I’ll Be There.”

Alice walked over once she spotted him sitting down in the lobby. She can feel her legs shake beneath her with every step and there’s a heaviness that’s weighing her down. But determination stops her from shying away from this moment. 

His eyes are closed, his head propped on one hand, the other clinging quite desperately onto a beanie. He looks exhausted and beaten, like he had just come from a lost battle. 

Her heart breaks at the sight of him, hurting and helpless, one step away from edging off a cliff. If only she knew how to fix him, she would. She would crawl on her knees if it meant taking away his pain. 

There’s a guilt that marinates in her bones every time she thinks of him. It wasn’t so long ago when she was spiraling down a rabbit hole and decided to drag him into the abyss with her. And now this. 

She shouldn’t feel so entitled to think that she’s the one who he needs right now. But this is for him as much as it is for her. 

Alice places a trembling hand on his shoulder, testing the waters and hoping this wasn’t a mistake. He doesn’t look up but his head turns slightly in her direction and she thinks it’s enough. 

“FP,” she whispers so softly that she isn’t sure if he heard her at all. “I’m sorry.”

He jolts up from the chair suddenly and steps in her space, causing her to stumble back slightly. There’s rage that is glowing in his eyes. But all she saw was fear and agony. 

“Don’t,” he says through gritted teeth. “He’s not dead yet.”

“I didn’t mean—“

“—Doesn’t matter.”

She knows his anger isn’t about her and even if it was, she couldn’t blame him. She knows exactly what it’s like to be played with like a toy, to have her life in the balance as if it were something meaningless. 

So she does the only thing she can. 

“Come here.”

She reaches for him, wraps her arms around him so tight that whatever fight he had in him dissipated within seconds. 

His body stiffened, uncertainty keeping him from succumbing completely into her embrace. But her warmth is intoxicating and it’s something he didn’t realize he needed right now. So he buries his face on the crook of her neck and despite himself, starts to cry. 

“It’s been— it’s been hours,” he sobs. “They won’t tell me anything.”

She feels his hands grip her cardigan so tightly that she thinks he might tear the fabric. 

“It’s okay,” she murmurs against his ear. “He’s a tough kid, FP.”

She doesn’t know if she believes the words herself but she doesn’t know what else to say. She wants this man in her arms to be okay, that much she knows. And his son is strong, like his father. It wouldn’t surprise her if he pulled through.

“It’s going to be okay,” she says again like a prayer, because goddamn it, they’ve all been through too much.

Isn’t that what he told her weeks ago? When she told him he had a son, that she gave their child up for adoption. When she had to tell him that he was dead. 

She wanted punishment, to be yelled at and be hated. She wanted him to be disgusted with her as much as she was with herself. Instead, he held her and cradled her in his arms. He didn’t let her leave. 

_It’s okay_ , he whispered over and over like a mantra. Even when they knew it wasn’t and never will be. 

But it tethered her then. Those words became oxygen as she sobbed against his shoulder. His voice became her lifeline. 

And now it’s her turn to return the favor. 

“Alice.” 

His voice breaks at her name and it causes her to pull him impossibly closer.

“I’m here.”

“I can’t lose him, too.”

If this turns south, he would have to live with losing two sons and that rattles her. She knows it wouldn’t end there. She can see with stinging clarity what will unfold for him and she can’t let that happen. She can’t lose him again. Not this time. 

She breaks their embrace to look at him and brushes the tears that are rolling down his cheeks. He looks so sunken, his eyes bloodshot from seeing too many horrors. She’d seen that look before, on the face of a seventeen year old boy, remembers how stricken he was when she told him she was leaving. 

“Look at me,” she says firmly and he does. “You’re not going to lose him.”

He shakes his head, unwilling to accept the blind hope she’s offering. 

“You don’t know that.”

He tries to peel himself away from her but she doesn’t let him. She takes his face in her hands and pleads with her eyes. 

“But the man I know you are doesn’t know how to give up.”

He sighs in resignation. He hasn’t been that man for a long time. He was fearless once. But all he is now is terrified. 

“Then you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

That’s when she pulls him to her, takes his lips in hers and kisses him hard. 

It doesn’t take long for him to respond. His hands find home in her hair in a heartbeat, angles her head so he can kiss her deeper. It feels such a natural thing for them, being exactly like this. Despite their decades apart, they always know how to do this. 

She moans when their tongues meet and she can finally taste him. She revisits old territories, dances the same tango all over again. 

Breathless, they break apart for air, their foreheads leaning against each other. 

“You’re wrong,” she says, a ghost of a smile on her lips. “I still know you.”

“I’ve changed.”

She shushes him with a finger, gives him a look that tells him quite clearly that he’s not winning this fight with her. 

“Don’t run away from this. He needs you.”

She kisses him again, once then twice. 

“I need you.”

There’s a calmness that washes over him at her words. He smiles because, well, he doesn’t really know why. Alice always made him smile, even when she was infuriating. 

His gaze drops from her eyes, suddenly shy because he feels like a teenager, lands on her lips instead because he wants to kiss her again. 

Then his eyes glances further down and he turns grim. The smile disappears and the pleasant mood between them fades. His fingers immediately travel to her neck, gently tracing the bruises there. 

“Who hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” she says, taking his hand from her neck and enveloping it in hers. 

He looked at her square in the eyes, lips tight and jaw clenched. 

“That’s not what I asked.”

She doesn’t have the strength to deal with this right now. She doesn’t want to think about how she shared a bed with a serial killer for two decades. Doesn’t want to think about how differently things could’ve been if only she’d been strong enough to stay with the man standing before her now. 

“Please,” she begs. “One thing at a time.”

He was about to protest, unsatisfied with her deflection but he catches sight of a doctor walking towards him. 

The woman’s mask is covering half her face and he can’t read her expression. There’s blood all over her uniform. _His son’s blood_. 

He can feel his heart beating faster. There’s a deafening ringing in his ears and suddenly, everything seems to move at a glacial pace. 

Alice squeezes his hand, the same fear in her chest. 

The woman removes her mask, clasps both hands in front of her as if to compose herself. 

“Mr. Jones?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to let me know what y’all think!


End file.
